Crochet With Cris: Gratuitous Fiber Shots from the 2014 State Fair

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Gratuitous Fiber Shots from the 2014 State Fair

Oh happy day.... as promised, this post is going to be pretty image intense with several shots from the State Fair.

This glorious image to your left is that of my win - third place with the Navajo Indian Diamonds Pattern afghan. I'm pretty pleased with the win - jokingly I had said "as long as there were more than 3 entries, then it is good" - and of course, being a State Fair, there were more than 3 entries and I am very happy with my win.

As you all know, I tend to assess my win against those that entered and the others that placed. I have to admit, the first place winner (pictured to the left also, under mine - the wine colored entrelac) was good - I was not a fan of the color BUT I will say that the gauge was spot on and even, nice and tight.

I did not like the second place winner. I hate to say that out loud, but its the truth. I do not think it should have paced at all. It was a basic ripple in double crochet. The gauge was not strong at all and the color choice made me wonder if a dart board was involved in the decision process.

This is an image of all three winners... you can see the pattern of the entrelac was rather random, but at least the colors matched. The second place winner, pictured next to mine .... it was just... strange. Very very strange. If the person who created that afghan is reading my blog, I will say that I wouldn't turn it down as a gift - I'm sure its just as warm as any of the other blankets - but it just didn't look better than some of the others. In fact, there was a white blanket (which somehow escaped my picture taking festivities) that I would have given 1st, the entrelac could then have had 2nd, and I would have been more than happy in third... again. Truly, the entrelac and mine were about even-stevens when it came to actual construction.

This is a shot down the whole.... the fourth case, cut off in the image, is where that really awesome white blanket was. But, as you can see, there were several entries in all the categories with 5-7 afghans/bed spreads in each display. A rather impressive showing.

In all honesty, there were very few amigarumi entries and even fewer pillows, shawls, socks, bibs, etc.... the baby blanket category had a good turnout but the real focus in the hobby building this year seemed to be quilted items.

Outside of the quilt-ghan looking afghan with the barn on it, I was surprised there were no graph-ghans presented.

I suppose I should also apologize for the shape of the pictures.... I took them with my phone (if that wasn't obvious *laughs)

So that is pretty much it - I am going to leave you with some other images I took. Many were behind glass so it was hard to get a good photo, but I succeeded in some cases.

I hope you have a great day!